Author
Topic: Your position [#2724] (Read 763 times)

I am a born-again Christian whose Father lost his entire immediate family in the concentration camps of World War II. This including his very religious Mother and Father, The end result is my Father is bitter about Christians, has rejected God for, really, the same thinking you had.

I can’t spend a long, long time rebutting your flawed thinking I ran into when searching the general topic “Why Bad Things happen to good people”. For a moment, not knowing you were and what your position/book was about, I began to think you were doing a wonderful job elucidating this topic along my line of thinking as a Christian in chapter 8 of your e-book (see http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god8.htm). . Of course that quickly changed as I read the chapter.

My heart broke regarding how you have come to believe what you believe – this concept of an illusion. Rather than go on and on with a long rebuttal, let me point out that your argument is logically flawed as follows.

1. Begin with the topic “does God exist”. I won’t go into the argument but it’s known as the argument of First Cause and it will lead you back, eventually, to who and how must the universe have been created. Non-believers point to a point of singularity, aka “The Big Bang Theory”. This has been and remains easily rejected under the umbrella of First Cause. That is, no matter how small and massive the point of singularity was, it was made of matter or energy .. or “something” which cannot be explained because of the very same delusion you speak of that you feel believers suffer. Even brilliant minds like Stephen Hawkings addressed his own bewilderment in his now ancient book “A Brief History in Time” and attributed it to something “supernatural”. By your standards, he was delusional. But again, he could not have been delusional because he did not believe in God. He simply admitted that it’s unimaginable how something could come from, nothing. I don’t keep up with the science any more but around ten years ago I found that people who take your position were spending endless hours of research describing how something, the very first ever, could come from nothing. And of course that would lead to more “something’, etc., etc. If you are among those who truly believe something came from nothing, you can stop here and close this email and begin to write about your own delusional thoughts.

2. If you believe there was or is a supernatural power that Created the universe, then it logically follows that this Person, whom I shall refer to as God, is all-knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and omnipresent (is everywhere). “All” means “no one more”. To argue that God is not any of these, is to assume there exists something more all-knowing, or more omnipotent. But this would be flawed thinking for the simple reason, again, of “First Cause”. That is, it would beg the question of who made God if there exists someone all-knowing or all-powerful.

If you are having trouble with this last point, take some time to reflect on this. Some of the greatest philosophers and theologians with expertise in an area called “apologetics” (I don’t mean to sound condescending – I just am not sure how singularly focused you are and whether you have broadened your knowledge to consider all viewpoints – recall, I came from a different direction – I was not quite where you are, but I was irresistibly and willingly compelled to ask Jesus into my heart and part of that process was studying apologetics – to such an extent that I realized it was me, not other believers, who was “brainwashed”. So shocking was this, that I studied how that could be. But that’s a topic for another discussion. It’s relevant here insofar as the question: “how can you”, or “how can Richard Dawkins” think as I once did and not understand what God has so elegantly and brilliantly made clear and evident to me but not you.

3. At this point, if we agree there is a God, that God is omniscient and omnipotent above all others, and that God is the Creator of the Universe, we are forced to ask what is now a much easier question to answer … well, sort of easier. That question is – why indeed does God, the God we speak of under the previously made assumptions and conclusions, allow things like that to happen.

The answer is one you will not like. It indeed is in his plans. Without digressing into another important topic, that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, I will point out that God made us, man and woman, in His image. But again, he didn’t make us as powerful as He is because that would be impossible and logically flawed. He instead made us less powerful and less knowing. He even warned Adam to stay away from the Fruit of Knowledge. Anyway, you are probably getting the heebie jeebies listening about Adam, Eve, etc. I can sum it up for you this way:

4. God made us for his greater pleasure. He gave us free will and he knew that we would be disobedient and become depraved. This depravity is historically cyclical and glaringly evident in the form of the rise and fall of many a nation/civilization. God knew this as well. He allowed us to choose the hedonistic way of life, But as only God can, and again for His pleasure, he presented the Promise of the Messiah and how man would be able to become redeemed by God allowing Jesus to die on the cross so that we could profess with out heart and lips that Jesus is our Savior and that we are utterly dependent on Jesus.

Everything fits nicely into such plans God has made. Do we understand each and every one of them (the plans) when they occur and are inexplicable or a certified “mystery” to us” to us? No. There is no mystery to any of this when it is looked at through the Gospel. Then it becomes very evident that God loves us, chooses us to become believers and we choose to step out in faith to support and love God and be honored and thankful we are Christians.

And why does God have in His plans, to allow depravity to occur in our “fallen” world?

Because it gives Him great pleasure to see who He can truly count among us, as people who have complete and utter faith and dependence on Him for their well-being, and for their unimagineably difficult-to-quantify the gratitude to Him -- the gift of a saving relationship with Him. If you don’t understand His plans, you will hopefully do so eventually.

Thanks and I am sleepy … have a wonderful day, weekend, and life and remember God Loves You!!!!!!

[name removed]

Logged

[On how kangaroos could have gotten back to Australia after the flood]: Don't kangaroos skip along the surface of the water? --Kenn

1. A god also runs afoul of the First Cause/creation-from-nothing problem. What caused the god to come into existence? Since you can't get around the problem either way, there's no reason to postulate a god, which complicates the issue. The explanation that makes the least assumptions is most likely to be correct.

2. Even presuming some unimaginable supernatural power that created the universe, it does not follow that it would have been a thinking entity, let alone being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. Indeed, trying to argue for such things weakens your argument, as you're basically saying that this (more-complex) omnimax thing created the (less-complex) universe, but not explaining where the omnimax thing came from.

Indeed, you address this very point in trying to argue against something that's "higher-up" than this omnimax god, by saying that it begs the question of who/what the uber-omnimax god is. However, that applies even more squarely to there being a god at all, since it begs the question of why you need a god in the first place, given that it god would have to have been caused as well.

3. As should be evident, we don't agree. Indeed, if you remove the postulation of an omnimax god and then ask why bad things happen to good people, then the answer becomes much less problematic. Things happen based on causality and random chance, and there's no "guiding universal force" that dictates who they happen to.

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At this point, since you're going further and further into a theological justification for God doing whatever he wants, whenever he wants, and for whatever reason he wants, there's no point in continuing to rebut. I've already rebutted the first three steps of your logic (that a god bypasses First Cause and creation-from-nothing, that a god must be omnimax, and that a god dictates that bad things to happen to good people, or vice versa), so the following steps of your logic are irrelevant.

I am a born-again Christian whose Father lost his entire immediate family in the concentration camps of World War II. This including his very religious Mother and Father, The end result is my Father is bitter about Christians, has rejected God for, really, the same thinking you had.

First of all, I'm very sorry to hear about your father. However, we are not "bitter", and we have not "rejected" god. We simply think that there is insufficient evidence for your god, and any other possible god.

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1. Begin with the topic “does God exist”. I won’t go into the argument but it’s known as the argument of First Cause and it will lead you back, eventually, to who and how must the universe have been created. Non-believers point to a point of singularity, aka “The Big Bang Theory”. This has been and remains easily rejected under the umbrella of First Cause. That is, no matter how small and massive the point of singularity was, it was made of matter or energy .. or “something” which cannot be explained because of the very same delusion you speak of that you feel believers suffer. Even brilliant minds like Stephen Hawkings addressed his own bewilderment in his now ancient book “A Brief History in Time” and attributed it to something “supernatural”. By your standards, he was delusional. But again, he could not have been delusional because he did not believe in God. He simply admitted that it’s unimaginable how something could come from, nothing. I don’t keep up with the science any more but around ten years ago I found that people who take your position were spending endless hours of research describing how something, the very first ever, could come from nothing. And of course that would lead to more “something’, etc., etc. If you are among those who truly believe something came from nothing, you can stop here and close this email and begin to write about your own delusional thoughts.

Where do I start with this?

First of all, nobody is claiming that "something came from nothing". That is a strawman created by apologetics. There was "something" before the big bang, it was just in a different shape and form than it is now. The big bang differs between the universe as we know it now, and the universe as it was before. It is not "first there was nothing, then *poof* stuff happened".

Second, if the universe has to be created by god, then who or what created god?

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2. If you believe there was or is a supernatural power that Created the universe, then it logically follows that this Person, whom I shall refer to as God, is all-knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and omnipresent (is everywhere). “All” means “no one more”. To argue that God is not any of these, is to assume there exists something more all-knowing, or more omnipotent. But this would be flawed thinking for the simple reason, again, of “First Cause”. That is, it would beg the question of who made God if there exists someone all-knowing or all-powerful.

Ah, so your position is that god "has just always existed". The problem is then; if you can accept the idea that *a something* "has always existed" in some form or another, why not the universe itself?

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3. At this point, if we agree there is a God, that God is omniscient and omnipotent above all others, and that God is the Creator of the Universe, we are forced to ask what is now a much easier question to answer … well, sort of easier. That question is – why indeed does God, the God we speak of under the previously made assumptions and conclusions, allow things like that to happen.

The answer is one you will not like. It indeed is in his plans. Without digressing into another important topic, that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God, I will point out that God made us, man and woman, in His image. But again, he didn’t make us as powerful as He is because that would be impossible and logically flawed. He instead made us less powerful and less knowing. He even warned Adam to stay away from the Fruit of Knowledge. Anyway, you are probably getting the heebie jeebies listening about Adam, Eve, etc. I can sum it up for you this way:

For all this talk about "god's plans", I've noticed that nobody has ever been able to describe what this "plan" of his is. After awhile, it sounds indistinguishable from a buzz word.

And why are you so sure it's the christian god we're dealing with? A mulism would say we're dealing with Allah. A hindu would say we're dealing with Shiva, or another of their god. Why should I just assume your god is the right one? (oh yeah, the bible says so, and the bible is right because the bible says it's right. Whatever)

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4. God made us for his greater pleasure. He gave us free will and he knew that we would be disobedient and become depraved. This depravity is historically cyclical and glaringly evident in the form of the rise and fall of many a nation/civilization. God knew this as well. He allowed us to choose the hedonistic way of life, But as only God can, and again for His pleasure, he presented the Promise of the Messiah and how man would be able to become redeemed by God allowing Jesus to die on the cross so that we could profess with out heart and lips that Jesus is our Savior and that we are utterly dependent on Jesus.

The dying on a cross thing is just nonsense. If god wants to forgive us, then all he has to do is say "I forgive".

Not to mention this whole "depravity" thing could've, apparently, been avoided if god hadn't planted that silly tree in the first place.

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Everything fits nicely into such plans God has made. Do we understand each and every one of them (the plans) when they occur and are inexplicable or a certified “mystery” to us” to us? No. There is no mystery to any of this when it is looked at through the Gospel. Then it becomes very evident that God loves us, chooses us to become believers and we choose to step out in faith to support and love God and be honored and thankful we are Christians.

God loves us... so much, that he's willing to send some of us into hell.

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And why does God have in His plans, to allow depravity to occur in our “fallen” world?

There is no such thing as a "fallen world".

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Because it gives Him great pleasure to see who He can truly count among us, as people who have complete and utter faith and dependence on Him for their well-being, and for their unimagineably difficult-to-quantify the gratitude to Him -- the gift of a saving relationship with Him. If you don’t understand His plans, you will hopefully do so eventually.

So he need "to see" who he can count on? As though it's not apparent to him already? That contradicts the whole "omniscient" thing you were going for earlier.

Oh yeah, if you're going to go on about a "plan", the least you could do is outline it to us. If you don't explain a plan, the you can't expect anyone else to understand it.

Begin with the topic “does God exist”. I won’t go into the argument but it’s known as the argument of First Cause

Who create God?

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2. If you believe there was or is a supernatural power that Created the universe, then it logically follows that this Person, whom I shall refer to as God, is all-knowing (omniscient), all powerful (omnipotent), and omnipresent (is everywhere).

If you believe… but if you don’t, then what? Your argument is called pre-suppositionalism – it involves first (i) supposing that there is a god, and (ii) that it is your god.

There is nothing to show that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent and much to say he isn’t.

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At this point, if we agree there is a God,

And we do not – we cannot “assume there is a god.” Any more than we can assume there is an invisible teapot circling the Earth.

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That question is – why indeed does God, the God we speak of under the previously made assumptions and conclusions, allow things like that to happen.

Like your father, who was wise and experienced, you should draw the conclusion that he is not there – this requires no apologetics

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4. God made us for his greater pleasure.

Then why did he make us wrongly and have to drown us all? Why were we no better after the flood?

But why is god a miserable unhappy God?

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He gave us free will

No he did not – there is no such thing as “free will” – there is determinisim, but this is so complex that it feels exactly like “free will”… but isn’t.

There are several long discussions on free will, all of which reach that conclusion: you may wish to search for them and see why what I have said is so.

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Everything fits nicely into such plans God has made.

No – you are imagining that there is a god and there is a plan and for everything that happens that goes against this, you make ever more ludicrous excuses.

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and remember God Loves You!!!!!!

This is not worth remembering: (i) There is nothing in the New or Old Testaments to indicate that God loves everyone in fact he distinctly says

Lu:19:27: But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.Lu:19:28: And when he had thus spoken, he went before, ascending up to Jerusalem.

2Ch:15:12: And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul;2Ch:15:13: That whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.2Ch:15:14: And they sware unto the LORD with a loud voice, and with shouting, and with trumpets, and with cornets.2Ch:15:15: And all Judah rejoiced at the oath: for they had sworn with all their heart, and sought him with their whole desire; and he was found of them: and the LORD gave them rest round about.

(ii) God does not exist – no gods exist – no gods have ever existed.

Logged

Nobody says “There are many things that we thought were natural processes, but now know that a god did them.”

4. God made us for his greater pleasure. He gave us free will and he knew that we would be disobedient and become depraved. This depravity is historically cyclical and glaringly evident in the form of the rise and fall of many a nation/civilization. God knew this as well.

There's something else I forgot to bring up in the last post.

If god knew things would turn out badly, why didn't he fix it before things went too far? You yourself said that god is all-knowing and all-powerful. It should've been easy enough for him to see where things were going, and do something before having to make a flood. Not to mention that he could've avoided having to do the whole Jesus thing. Yet, he choose to let things deteriorate to the point where he felt he had to drown every single person in the world. (except for eight people, who had to bother making a big boat)

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Everything fits nicely into such plans God has made. Do we understand each and every one of them (the plans) when they occur and are inexplicable or a certified “mystery” to us” to us? No. There is no mystery to any of this when it is looked at through the Gospel. Then it becomes very evident that God loves us, chooses us to become believers and we choose to step out in faith to support and love God and be honored and thankful we are Christians.

And why does God have in His plans, to allow depravity to occur in our “fallen” world?

Because it gives Him great pleasure to see who He can truly count among us, as people who have complete and utter faith and dependence on Him for their well-being, and for their unimagineably difficult-to-quantify the gratitude to Him -- the gift of a saving relationship with Him. If you don’t understand His plans, you will hopefully do so eventually

That's another thing. Why does an all-powerful, all-knowing being need to "plan"? "Plan" implys that you have to think things carefully to achieve a desired outcome. That should be an alien concept for something that willed the universe into being. If god wanted something done, all he should have to do is say "I command so-and-so to be done!", and *poof*, it's done. Keep in mind, that is exactly how the bible says god created the heavens and Earth.